The Apple Thief
by ocean ink
Summary: As Jack Sparrow and Bootstrap Bill Turner roam the streets of Tortuga in their youth, their paths cross that of the notorious apple thief.


**Disclaimer:** The characters, situations, and trademarks featured in this story are the property of Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, and Gore Verbinski, and various studios including First Mate Productions, Jerry Bruckheimer Pictures, and Walt Disney Studios. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

Jack had been watching the boy for quite a while, now.

Tortuga's fruit stand, positioned so that it would be one of the first things the half-starved, diseased sailors would see upon their docking at port, offered all manner of ripe and near-rotted delights, but the boy refused to acknowledge all but one of them. The apples. And only the green ones, as well.

As the afternoon had begun to wane, and the sun along with it, the boy would appear, flitting amongst the haggling crowd as only someone as starved as he was ever could. His bony hand would reach hesitantly over apples as red as blood, as green as the trees, before finally letting his hand take hold of one that he particularly liked.

Most days, Jack would climb up to the roof of a rickety shack, at home so near to the place where the sun meets the sky meets the sea, observing the strange ritual, sometimes with a puzzled Bill Turner in tow. Jack's charming nature would carry across the Caribbean breeze, perched on the edges of words, fading at the ears of passerby, and dying at the sight of the apple thief. Jack's incessant movement would halt, a rare moment that was always savored rather fondly by Bill.

Jack would slowly draw in breath as the thief laid his hand on an apple, nimbly plucking it from its home amongst the other fruits. He would hold his breath for what seemed like an eternity, all the while following the boy's weaving movements through the press, his eyes dancing with amusement in the golden sunlight. Jack would only exhale in disappointment if the boy escaped unnoticed. Otherwise, the breath would remain held fast in his lungs. Or at least Bill could never tell if he let it out or not.

"Jack, when-" Bill started, before receiving a wave of dismissal from his friend.

"We must wait for the opportune moment, mate."

"This is completely pointless. We've been coming up here for days. All that wretch ever does is steal the apples. "

Jack swung his head round to look at Bill, fixing him with a grin. "Ah, but isn't that the point, then?"

Bill rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. There was no wisdom in twelve year olds, especially that one, no matter what anyone else said.

Within seconds, Jack had shot up to his feet, startling Bill out of his uninterested slouch.

"Oi! 'E's stealing your apples, that boy is!" Jack shouted from the rooftop, ducking from view as soon as the words sprung from his lips.

Almost instantly, the thief broke into a lopsided run down one of the many dusty streets of Tortuga, clutching the apple to his chest, just as the fruit seller began shouting all manner of profanities into the cloud of filth that streamed from the boy's bare heels. With the shouts came also two bullets shot from the seller's pistol, each missing their mark by far. Whether or not that was a good thing could be debated, but Bill reckoned that the thief was lucky that the seller had taken comfort from drink earlier that day, which more than likely saved his skin, the intoxication sending the bullets askew.

One embedded itself in the thick wooden door of the fortune teller's hideaway. The other skipped along the road, finally skidding to a halt in front of the enormous paws of a napping dog.

Jack and Bill leapt from the roof in unison, running along paths unnoticed by most, and as they broke from the confines of a narrow alleyway, Jack caught the sight of bright green out of the corner of his eye. The two slowed to a lazy amble and approached the boy, the object of many of Jack's unspoken plans.

Jack sidled up to the apple thief, offering something short of friendship in the grin he flashed him, and asked him his name.

"Barbossa," the boy replied through a mouthful of fruit, a hunger for something more than food etched across his sunburnt face.

Jack repeated the name, savoring it on his tongue, as the thief took a hearty bite from his apple, the scented juices streaming from his mouth. They would dry, eventually, in the baking heat, leaving the sticky, bittersweet taste of a reaped reward on Barbossa's chin as the trio of

pirate children gallivanted across the town, always underfoot of the sailors, until dusk wrapped the port in its shadowed embrace, and they found themselves at the quietly lapping water's edge, all three the washed up gems of the sea.


End file.
